Contact: Dan Dempsey at dempsey_dan@yahoo.com .......
The Math Underground is part of a national coalition, originated by NYC HOLD. .. a coalition of groups of citizens NOT vested in continually reinventing the wheel in order to justify our own existence, jobs or expertise. ........ Check the Blog list for Seattle Math Group.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Court Update on my Complaint against OSPI and SBE

Friday 7-25-2008 was a preliminary hearing and the real deal will happen in 60 days.

I met with the representative from the Atty. Gen. office and we agreed that there is no dispute on the facts of what happened. The judge will likely need to rule on whether the actions that took place satisfied the requirements of SB 6534.

Did the actions of SBE and OSPI meet the requirements of SB 6534? .... which required a meeting that I maintain did not occur.. there was a brief window for emails to be sent but no meeting.

Here is my letter to SBE of 4-25-2008:

Dear State Board of Education Voting Members, 4-25-2008

On April 24th, 2008 in Thurston County Superior Court, I filed a legal complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief #08-2-00974-0. The relief I seek is to have OSPI and SBE follow the law SB6534. In your unanimous vote on Friday April 18th, 2008 I think that you violated the law by choosing not to follow it.

Having spent the 2006-2007 school year in the Seattle Public Schools, I am experienced with a board’s decision making process that often chooses to trust the hired professionals rather than thoroughly researching the action under consideration. For one example consider the unanimous vote on May 30th, 2007 by the Seattle School Directors to approve the Everyday Mathematics texts in the elementary school math adoption.

In the Everyday Math situation, after one year Seattle will have expended in excess of $4 million for materials, coaching and professional development on a book that ignores the essence of mathematics. That essence is the fact that mathematics is best learned by mastering increasingly sophisticated material, which is built layer upon layer. Yes, $4 million dollars to move in a direction opposed by National Math Advisory Panel Report Foundations for Success of March 13, 2008. On page 20 in a section titled A Need for Coherence the report finds the top-performing countries are more likely to expect closure after exposure, development, and refinement of a particular topic. These critical differences distinguish a spiral curriculum (like Everyday Mathematics) from one built on developing proficiency—a curriculum that expects proficiency in the topics that are presented before more complex or difficult topics are introduced.It is likely that Seattle adopted these materials with very little thought because Everyday Mathematics was rated by OSPI as a most aligned math series with the WA Math EALRs and GLEs.

There are several reasons that I decided to take the time and make the effort as well as pay the $200 filing fee to take legal action against OSPI and SBE. It has become increasingly apparent that in too many cases governmental bodies do not follow the law. This has been quite apparent though out the ongoing saga of HB 1906 and SB6534. I will not go into all the details of failure in this communication. I will ask you to reject the proposal which will be submitted to you on Monday April 28th, 2008 because the law SB6534 has not been followed.

Your current charge is to develop and approve World Class Math Standards by following SB6534. This has not occurred and the law SB6534 has not been followed.

I wrote a letter to many of you on February 11th, 2008. I sent a letter to each SBE member on April 17th, 2008. I received no response to either letter.

{ Inserted thought... it is quite apparent that in many cases government is not responsive to the public. In addition to no response to the two mentioned letters I received no response to this letter either. It appears that to get a response requires paying $200 and going to court. Then the Government in some form responds but still not the SBE members who received the three letters.}

If you vote in the affirmative on Monday April 28th, 2008 to approve these standards, be aware of each of the following because it is apparent that you choose to over rule each of these points by your actions:

1. The Math Advisory Panel has not met and discussed any of this as required by law. The synergistic process of placing highly knowledgeable people about math together in a collaborative environment is exactly what I believe SB6534 required for Math Panel input. It should be noted that the Math Panel has several industry professionals who are very knowledgeable about mathematics on it. This is the recommended composition of a group involved in any standards revision as advocated by the 2004 NSF funded Mathematics Standards Study Group. Despite the fact that one of the recommendations of HB 1906 consultants Strategic Teaching was for mathematically knowledgeable industry professionals on the Math Standards Revision Team, OSPI ignored both the MSSG and Strategic Teaching recommendations in this regard.

2. Public Input was required but there was inadequate time to develop public input. When a document is continually revised and the promise is that the last revision will be posted on April 15th. Then that revision is sent out to Math Advisory Panelists at 7:00 AM on April 18th and posted a bit later on the Website, how is the public to intelligently respond in a meeting that is held at 1:30 PM of the same day as the release.

3. This development process has now been broken into a piecemeal arrangement. That was not done with the intention that it would help in the development of World Class Math Standards. It was done to provide summer professional development. This summer professional development was not mentioned as being necessary within the time frame of SB6534. Let us get the product correct, as SB6534 requires by following the process advocated by the law. In the current “Hurry Up Plan” huge gloss-overs are happening. Math panel does not meet. Public Input with less than 7 hours of reflective development time.

4. The meeting of April 18th had less than half of the SBE members physically present. I testified at that meeting as a member of the public as the Math Panel was not asked to prepare a statement. The Math Panel had never been consulted as an advisory panel in this situation. Strangely Dr George Bright and several members of the Standards Revision Team were on the agenda giving testimony and urging the SBE to adopt this report. I use the word strangely as they are not mentioned in SB6534. The failure of the Standards Revision Team to produce adequate Standards inspired the legislature to remove both the Dana Center and the Standards Revision Team from the Revision of Standards described in SB6534. Why is Dr Seeley of the Dana Center still involved with attempting to make modifications to the Standards less than one week prior to April 18? Why is the SBE hearing from the SRT team instead of the Math Panel?

5. Please reread my letter of April 17th, 2008 in its entirety.Highlights:a… I urge you to delay the Standards approval decision for at least another month.

b… Please do not finalize these K-8 standards this week.

c… Why are we panelists being deprived of time because OSPI wasted it?

d… The Advisory Panelists have been denied an opportunity to collaborate and discuss what you are being asked to approve.

e… I thought the intent of the (2008) legislature was to have the SBE correct the poor direction given by OSPI in this process. Please do so.

3 comments:

Edmonds has a parent blog and they adopted McDougall Littell officially 6/5/2008.

http://parents4math.blogspot.com/

The weak link is middle school (naturally) - they stayed with CMP2

Edmonds was an important district for reform advocates because of its vicinity to Everett. The Director at CEL was the former sup of Edmonds (Panasonic Exec.) - so you have links to Dana, Boeing, OSPI, and Achieve.

The District presently has an experienced sup, who is more moderate and traditional. I think recently they hired a new curriculum director. I'd like to know how this impacted their 'new' alternative program.

The only thing I would comment on is this issue of balance. Because certainly everyone involved in this debate believes in balanced curriculum. This is a non-issue, but it makes WTM and everybody else who disagrees with the reform curriculum appear as though they aren't balanced.

Or a term I've heard used more and more - 'disciplined math skills' as what? undisciplined?

The idea being that kids can't learn math without discipline which is ludicrous, because it presumes children who are undisciplined have no math skills? So then we should use reform math so they will learn discipline?

Very questionable arguments and simply doesn't fly in the face of experience. Students have to be engaged and motivated before you can create an environment where discipline can be enforced and effective, otherwise it appears arbitrary and unfair.

Its important to establish what was occurring around the state at the time MAP was torpedoed. I think its fair to say that the public is in a bit of an uproar over OSPI and their groupies.